New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America

7. Machinery and Hired Labour in
Agriculture

Let us consider another form of capital investment in land which
is technically different from the form examined
above—implements and machinery. All European agricultural
statistics provide irrefutable evidence that the larger the farm
acreage, the greater is the proportion of farms using all types
of machines and the greater the number of machines used. The
superiority of big farms in this highly important respect has
been established beyond doubt. In this field, too, American
statisticians have a rather unconventional approach: neither
implements nor farm machinery are recorded separately, only
their total value being given. Such data may, of course, be less
exact in each individual case, but taken as a whole they allow
definite comparisons
between divisions and between groups of
farms—comparisons which are impossible with other kinds of
data.

The former slave-owning South, the area of share-cropping,
occupies a bottom place in the use of machinery. The value of
implements and machinery per acre—for its three
divisions—is one-third, one-quarter, one-fifth of the
figures for the intensive states of the North. The latter lead
the rest and, in particular, are far ahead of the West North
Central states, America’s most agricultural area and her
granary, which superficial observers still frequently regard as
a model area of capitalism and of the use of machinery.

It should be noted that the American statistical method of
determining the value of machinery, as well as of land,
livestock, buildings, etc., per acre of all farmland and not per
acre of improved land, understates the superiority of the
“intensive” areas of the North and cannot, in general, be
considered correct. The difference between the divisions in
regard to the proportion of improved acreage is very great: in
the West, it is as low as 26.7% for the Mountain states, and as
high as 75.4% for the East North Central states in the
North. For the purposes of economic statistics, improved land is
undoubtedly of much greater importance than total acreage. In
New England, improved acreage in farms and its proportion of the
total has decreased substantially, especially since 1880,
probably
under the impact of competition from the free lands of
the West (i.e., free from ground-rent, from tribute to the
landowning gentry). At the same time, the use of machinery in
this division is very extensive and the value of machinery per
acre of improved land is especially high. In 1910, it
amounted to $7 per acre, while in the Middle Atlantic States it
was about $5.50 and not more than $2-3 in the other divisions.

Again, the division with the smallest farms, in terms
of acreage, turns out to have the largest capital
investments in land in the form of machinery.

Comparing the Middle Atlantic, one of the “intensive” divisions
of the North, with the most extensive region of the North, the
West North Central, we discover that as far as improved acreage
per farm is concerned, that of the former is less than half
that of the latter—62.6 acres as against
148.0—while the value of machinery used is
greater—$358 per farm as against $332. The smaller
farms are thus larger enterprises in terms of-machinery used.

We still have to compare the data on the intensive nature of
agriculture with the data on the employment of hired labour. I
already gave these figures in brief above, in Chapter 5. We must
now examine them in greater detail by divisions .

Divisions

Percentage
of farms
hiring labour
in 1909

Average
outlays
on hired
labour per
hiring farm

Outlays on
labour per acre
of improved land
($)

Increase
of outlays
from 1899
to 1909
(%)

1909

1899

The North

New England
Middle Atlantic

66.0
65.8

277
253

4.76
2.66

2.55
1.64

+86
+62

East North Central
West North Central

52.7
51.0

199
240

1.33
0.83

0.78
0.56

+71
+48

The South

South Atlantic
East South Central
West South Central

42.0
31.6
35.6

142
107
178

1.37
0.80
1.03

0.80
0.49
0.75

+71
+63
+37

The West

Mountain
Pacific

46.8
58.0

547
694

2.95
3.47

2.42
1.92

+22
+80

The U.S.A.

45.9

223

1.36

0.86

+58

This shows, firstly, that capitalism is undoubtedly much more
developed in the agriculture of the Northern intensive states
than in that of the extensive states; secondly, that in the
former, capitalism is developing faster than in the latter;
thirdly, that the division with the smallest farms, New England,
has both the highest level of development of capitalism in
agriculture and the highest rate of its development. There the
increase of expenditure on hired labour per acre of improved
land is 86%; the Pacific states come second in this
respect. California, where, as I have said, “small-scale”
capitalist fruit-raising is rapidly developing, is also the
leader in this respect among the Pacific states.

The West North Central division, with the largest farm acreages
(an average of 148 acres in 1910, counting improved land only)
and with the most rapid and steady growth of farm acreages since
1850, is commonly regarded as the “model” capitalist region of
American agriculture. We have now seen that this contention is
profoundly erroneous. The extent to which hired labour is used
is certainly the best and most direct indicator of the
development of capitalism. And it tells us that America’s
“granary”, the region of the much vaunted “wheat factories”,
which attract so much attention, is less capitalist
than the industrial and intensively farmed region, where the
indication of agricultural progress is not an increase in
improved acreage but an increase in capital investments
in the land, together with a simultaneous reduction of
the acreage.

It is quite possible to imagine that with the use of machinery
the improvement of the “black soil” or unploughed virgin lands
in general can proceed very rapidly despite a small increase in
the employment of hired labour. In the West North Central states
expenditure on hired labour per acre of improved land was $0.56
in 1899, and $0.83 in 1909, an increase of only 48%. In New
England, where the improved area is decreasing and not
increasing and where the average size of farms is decreasing and
not in creasing, expenditure on hired labour was not only very
much higher both in 1899 ($2.55 per acre) and in 1909 ($4.76 per
acre), but had grown during the period at a much faster rate
(+86%).

The average farm in New England is one-fourth the size
of farms in the West North Central states (38.4 as against 148
acres), yet its average expenditure on hired labour is
greater : $277 as against $240. Consequently, the
reduction in the size of farms means in such cases that a
greater amount of capital is invested in agriculture, and that
the capitalist nature of agriculture is intensified; it
signifies a growth of capitalism and capitalist production.

While the West North Central states, which comprise 34.3% of the
total improved acreage in the U.S.A., are the most typical
division of “extensive” capitalist agriculture, the
Mountain states offer an example of similar extensive
farming in conditions of the most rapid colonization. Here less
hired labour is employed, in terms of the proportion of farms
employing labour, but the average expenditure on hired labour is
very much higher than in the West North Central division. But in
the former the employment of hired labour increased at a slower
rate than in any other division of America (only +22%). This
type of evolution was apparently due to the following
conditions. In this division, colonization and the distribution
of homesteads are extremely widespread. The area under crops
increased more than in any other division: by 89% from 1900 to
1910. The settlers, the owners of the homesteads, naturally
employ little hired labour, at any rate when starting their
farms. On the other hand, hired labour must be employed on a
very large scale, firstly, by some latifundia, which are
especially numerous in this division as in the West in general;
and secondly, by farms raising special and highly capitalist
crops. In some states of this division, for instance, a very
high proportion of the total crop value comes from fruits
(Arizona—6%, Colorado—10%), and vegetables
(Colorado—11.9%, Nevada—11.2%), and so forth.

In summing up, I must say the following: Mr. Himmer’s assertion
that “there are no areas where colonization is no longer
continuing, or where large-scale capitalist agriculture is not
decaying and is not being replaced by family-labour farms”, is a
mockery of the truth, and entirely contrary to the actual
facts. The New England division, where there is no colonization
at all, where farms are smallest, where
farming is most intensive, shows the highest level of capitalism
in agriculture and the highest rate of capitalist
development. This conclusion is most essential and basic for an
understanding of the process of capitalist development in
agriculture in general, because the intensification of
agriculture and the reduction in the average farm acreage that
goes with it is not some accidental, local, casual phenomenon,
but one that is common to all civilized
countries. Bourgeois economists of every stripe make a host of
mistakes when considering data on the evolution of agriculture
(as in Great Britain, Denmark, and Germany) because they are not
familiar enough with this general phenomenon, they have not
given it enough thought and have not understood or analysed it.